John McCain turned in a solid, commanding performance in the debate last night, and the people of New Hampshire recognized this.
Update: The Des Moines Register agrees:
John McCain turned in his best performance of the 2008 Republican presidential campaign during a debate Wednesday night in New Hampshire.
His blunt, candid answers were reminiscent of the "straight-talking" McCain we saw in the 2000 presidential campaign. His good showing should provide a little lift to his troubled 2008 bid, an effort he's struggling to get back on track.
One measure of how effective McCain was came from two of his opponents, Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani, who praised him and quoted from his positions during their own answers to questions. You can't ask for a better commercial than to have one of your opponents, Giuliani, say he'd be supporting you if he weren't running. Huckabee lavished high praise on McCain for his service to the country.
McCain was blunt in telling the audience the troop surge was working, that the United States had to finish the job in Iraq, that he opposed torturing prisoners for information, and that he wouldn't sign a no-tax-increase pledge that's popular in New Hampshire.
Huckabee also had a good night. He correctly ducked a hypothetical question about what, precisely, he would do in response to a nuclear Iran. And he looked presidential when he stood up to Ron Paul's badgering about the need to immediately get out of Iraq.
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